Because so many products commonly used in households, such as paints, insect sprays, deodorants, room fresheners, etc., are packaged in pressurized containers having readily actuatable dispensing valves, it is important that containers of this type be provided with means for rendering them child-resistant.
It has been customary for many years to equip pressurized containers of this type with what are called "overcaps" many of them having central finger depressions which guide a user's finger to a position for depressing the centrally located valve-actuating and spray directing nozzle to discharge the contents from the can. Therefore, many of the suggested child-resistant overcaps have generally followed this same construction with added elements to provide the child-resistant feature.
Most of the child-resistant overcaps, for example the cap disclosed in Corba U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,758 require what Corba calls ". . . a conscious action to return the actuator to a child-safe condition".
A number of other overcaps for containers of this type have included members which obstruct access to the valve-actuating nozzle except by fingers of length or width greater than those usually possessed by a small child of tender years, say, five or six. It is apparent, however, that some of these actuators could not be utilized by even an adult or an older child who had small hands with short or narrow fingers.
It is, therefore, the principal object of the instant invention to provide a child-resistant overcap for a pressurized container comprising a valve guard which is movable between valve-guarding position and valve-actuating position and which includes resilient means biasing the valve guard toward guarding position whereby, after movement to valve-actuating position by an adult or older child, the valve guard automatically is restored to valve-guarding or child-resistant position without the necessity for a conscious action on the part of the user.
It is yet another object of the instant invention to provide an overcap for a pressurized container having a centrally located and upwardly extending valve nozzle which comprises a valve guard that is radially movable between an outer, valve-guarding or child-resistant position and an inner valve-actuating position, and an integral resilient means which biases the valve guard toward the outer valve-guarding or child-resistant position.
And yet another object of the instant invention is to provide such a child-resistant overcap for a pressurized container having a central, upwardly protruding valve nozzle which comprises a valve guard and resilient means all of which are integral with the overcap structure.